Pushing the limits of Wedding Photography – The Groom’s Story

When Jeremy and Emma approached me about including a Story Art piece as part of their wedding day coverage I was initially hesitant. My composites often takes hours of pre planning, not to mention the time that would need to be allocated to the shoot itself, on the wedding day. I love to take a challenge and run with it though, so it wasn’t long (10 minutes?) before I was dreaming up ideas for their custom wedding Story Art piece.

Jeremy and Emma hired us under our Wedding/Portrait business, Emerald Eye Photography, to cover their wedding day in Adelaide on Saturday the 14th of November, 2015. Together, my husband Stuart and I have been photographing weddings for over a decade. Our challenge for this wedding was to fly interstate, ensure we had all the gear required for both the wedding and the composite, and fit everything into the one day. We not only photographed the wedding, but also captured video clips to be put together into a Wedding VideoStory. During the reception we created a same day slideshow of 100 images from the wedding day. Our day ran from 8:30am to 2:30 am the following morning!

Jeremy’s Back Story

Jeremy Sebastian is a Pro Boxer. When Jeremy and Emma gave me their lists of interests, I struggled to try and come up with a concept that fit both of them within one Story Art piece. Emma enjoys romantic comedies, classic architecture, old fashioned class and charm.

I am into architecture and design, things that are a little different or quirky, old fashioned class and charm. Champagne, fashion and details, girly tv & movies (think gossip girl, crazy stupid love or my best friends wedding) I’m a sucker for a rom com!! The closest thing I do to a sport is yoga and even then I find myself making up excuses to skip class.

Emma - Bride

With a massive bridal party of 14 (16 including Page Boy Hudson and Flower Girl Indi) coming up with an all in one composite was proving challenging. Jeremy’s interests were also polar opposites to his fiance’s, preferring action and adventure over classic romance.

I pondered on the perfect image for some time until one night, after being woken up by my daughter at 3am and not being able to get back to sleep, I formulated the plan for two separate images. One telling the story of the Bride getting ready and one telling the story of the Groom getting ready. By breaking them up into two separate artworks I was able to bring into focus each of their interests (and also create a more manageable piece with less people to fit in each image).

Knowing that Boxing was close to Jeremy’s heart, I came up with the idea you see here to tell the story of his day, one last ‘hurrah’ before the ceremony.

Jeremy is of course the one doing the punching… Can’t have the pro boxer groom being knocked out by his brother!

It’s just something so different… You don’t really see that, especially for things like Wedding Photography. It incorporates something that I love and it’s just really cool!

Jeremy Sebastian - Groom

We captured something amazing. We were able to create two unique artworks for our couple that break open the confines of traditional wedding photography. Artworks that tell their stories in such a unique way, in a never before seen format.

Below you can see all of the images that made up the final composite. EVERY SINGLE CAPTURE was photographed on the wedding day. Why? Why not capture some of the images on a different day? In order to enter specific photography competitions all elements in a wedding composite must have been photographed on the same day. Crazy? Yes probably, but nothing like pushing the limits!

We needed to capture the boys in a real Boxing Ring. Thank you to Cardio Flex for allowing us to make use of your space on a busy Saturday morning! The day prior Stuart and I spent a few hours mapping out the scene and taking test shots to ensure that the actual shoot on the wedding day would go smoothly. Three hours of preparation meant a smooth 30 minute shoot on the day of the wedding.

Behind the Scenes of the Shoot

Thank you to Jeremy, Chris and Guy Sebastian for sharing in this Video about your experience. It’s one thing to see the shoot in action, but to hear from those involved helps others to understand it CAN BE DONE! I’m not saying it was easy (far from it), but I’m determined to break the mould in Photography and offer something to my clients that previously was only available for big budget corporate ad campaigns.

I do a little bit of photography myself, and to be on the other side of the lens and watch it go down so quickly and smoothly was nice, because this would take me forever… These guys are incredible at what they do.

Speed Edit of the Photoshop Process

I want to thank a number of companies that made it possible for me to manage this challenging project in such a streamlined manner. As you will have seen in the behind the scenes video, I had set up a tripod with my Tether Tool’s equipment which enabled me to view the images in the boxing ring as I shot them. My Canon 5Diii was connected to my Wacom Cintiq Companion 2. I also have a Sony A7Rii which for this project was utalised for the behind the scenes video and photography.

Thank you to Coloured Smoke – colouredsmoke.com.au who sent out a great assortment of smoke sticks that we used during the Story Art image as well as on location. (See in the Behind the Scenes Video)

I want to thank Tether Tools (and Kayell Australia – Tether Tool’s Pro Distributer) for choosing me as their Global Ambassador. This was the first on location shoot with my gear and everything worked perfectly. I would not have been able to photograph this in such a smooth manner without this set up

.

ProTog supplied me with the lighting I utalised for the project. I set up two Jinbei HD600’s. One was set up as a rim light behind to the right and the other was set up as a fill with an 80cm Jinbei Beauty Dish (collapsable). This lighting enabled me to create a stylised look that added to the highly commercial feel of the image.

I think the creativity behind this is what makes it so special

Chris Sebastian

I’m so pleased with the end result of this image. I was asked if this is what I envisioned when I came up with the idea in my mind. Truth is it’s even better. I originally hadn’t planned to use the guests and the church in the background. This was a decision made on the morning of the shoot. I really love how Jeremy’s close family members are part of the finished scene, including of course his beautiful Bride, Emma.

I loved it so much I needed to print it! An artwork like this needs to be seen printed on beautiful paper and showcased in pride and place on the wall. I used my Epson 3880 and printed on Canson Infinity Platine Fibre Based photographic paper. Thanks to my framer Michael from Art Defined for matting this print for me.

I can’t wait to get a beautiful large print to Jeremy and Emma for their new home.

12 thoughts on “Pushing the limits of Wedding Photography – The Groom’s Story”

That print is absolutely brilliant. Love it and Jeremy and Emma will be proud to display it in their new home. What a brilliant idea for their wedding day. Loved every bit of the video. Very very clever indeed. Amazing job – well done

Being originally from Adelaide I feel connected to this incredible image. Ive always wanted to try a wedding composite now I have the level to strive for. As a photojournalistic style photographer I look to capture their character. You have done so in the most creative way. Congratulations to you all. Im now following your work and can’t wait to see what creativity you come up with next.